The roots of libertarian socialism extend back to the
classical radicalism of the
early modern period, claiming the English
Levellers and the French
Encyclopédistes as their intellectual forerunners, and admiring figures of the
Age of Enlightenment such as
Thomas Jefferson and
Thomas Paine. According to
Mikhail Bakunin and
Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, while authoritarian socialism had its origins in
Germany, libertarian socialism was born in
France. The modern foundations of libertarian socialism lay in the
utopian socialism expounded by
Charles Fourier,
Robert Owen and
Henri de Saint-Simon, who envisioned a
democratic socialism guided by
communitarianism,
moralism and
feminism.
Emergence , leader of the libertarian socialist faction of the
International Workingmen's Association Libertarian socialism first emerged from the
anti-authoritarian faction of the
International Workingmen's Association (IWA), after it was expelled from the organisation by the
Marxist faction at the
Hague Congress of 1872. The libertarian socialist
Mikhail Bakunin had rejected
Karl Marx's calls for a "
dictatorship of the proletariat", as he predicted it would only create a
new ruling class, composed of a privileged minority, which would use the state to oppress the working classes. He concluded that: "no
dictatorship can have any other aim than to perpetuate itself, and it can only give rise to and instill slavery in the people that tolerates it." Marxists responded to this by insisting on the eventual "
withering away of the state", in which society would transition from dictatorship to
anarchy, in an apparent attempt to synthesise authoritarian and libertarian forms of socialism. This put libertarian socialists into direct
competition with
social democrats and
communists for influence over
left-wing politics, in a contest which lasted for over fifty years. Libertarian socialism proved attractive to British writers such as
Edward Carpenter,
Oscar Wilde, and
William Morris, the latter of whom developed a kind of libertarian socialism based in a strong
critique of
civilisation, which he aimed to overthrow and replace with what he called a "beautiful society". Morris drove the development of
impossibilism, which became increasingly concerned with the
bureaucratisation and
moderation of the socialist movement, leading to the establishment of the
Socialist Party of Great Britain. By the early 20th century, libertarian socialists had gained a leading influence over the left-wing in the
Netherlands,
France and
Italy and went on to play major roles in the
Mexican and
Russian Revolutions. In India, the libertarian socialist tradition was represented in the early twentieth century anti-colonial movement by
Bhagat Singh.
Russian Revolution Russian libertarian socialists, including
anarchists,
populists and
left socialist-revolutionaries, led the opposition to the
Tsarist autocracy throughout the late-19th century. They created a network of both clandestine and legal organisations throughout Russia, with the aim of overthrowing the
Russian nobility and bringing land under the
common ownership of the
mir. Their agitation for
land reform in the Russian countryside culminated with the establishment of rural
soviets during the
1905 Revolution. Anarchists also organised among the urban
proletariat, forming clandestine
factory committees that proved more attractive to revolution-minded workers than the more
reformist trade unions favoured by the
Bolsheviks. During the
1917 Revolution, in which libertarian socialists played a leading role, the Bolsheviks changed tack and adopted elements of the libertarian socialist programme in their appeals to the workers. But by 1919, the new Bolshevik government had come to view the libertarian socialists as a threat to their power and moved to eliminate their influence. Libertarian socialist organisations were banned and many of their members were arrested, deported to
Siberia or executed by the
Cheka. The
Revolutions of 1917–1923 ended in defeat for the libertarian socialists, with either the social democrats, the Bolsheviks or
nationalists rising to power. Libertarian socialists responded by reevaluating their positions, emphasising mass organisation over
intellectual vanguardism and
revolutionary spontaneity over
substitutionism. According to
Chansy Ojeili, Marxist libertarian socialists, including
Rosa Luxemburg in Germany,
Antonie Pannekoek in the Netherlands,
Sylvia Pankhurst in Britain,
György Lukács in Hungary and
Antonio Gramsci in Italy, came to conceive the "
dictatorship of the proletariat" as a form of class power, rather than as the dictatorship of a political party in this period.
Spanish Revolution militiawomen during the
1936 Revolution Libertarian socialism reached its apex of popularity with the
Spanish Revolution of 1936, during which libertarian socialists led "the largest and most successful revolution against capitalism to ever take place in any
industrial economy". In Spain, traditional forms of
self-management and
common ownership dated back to the 15th century. The
Levante, where collective self-management of irrigation was commonplace, became the hotbed of anarchist collectivisation. Building on this traditional
collectivism, from 1876, the Spanish libertarian socialist movement grew through sustained agitation and the establishment of alternative institutions that culminated in the Spanish Revolution. During this period, a series of workers' congresses, first convoked by the
Spanish Regional Federation of the IWA, debated and refined proposals for the construction of a libertarian socialist society. Over several decades, resolutions from these congresses formed the basis of a specific program on a range of issues, from the structure of communes and the post-revolutionary economy to libertarian cultural and artistic initiatives. These proposals were published in the pages of widely distributed libertarian socialist periodicals, such as
Solidaridad Obrera and
Tierra y Libertad, which each circulated tens of thousands of copies. By the outbreak of the revolution, the anarcho-syndicalist
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) enjoyed widespread popularity, counting 1.5 million members within its ranks. During the revolution, the
means of production were brought under
workers' control and
worker cooperatives formed the basis for the new economy. According to
Gaston Leval, the CNT established an agrarian federation in the Levante that encompassed 78% of Spain's most
arable land. The regional federation was populated by 1,650,000 people, 40% of whom lived on the region's 900 agrarian collectives, which were self-organised by peasant unions. Although industrial and agricultural production was at its highest in the anarchist-controlled areas of the Spanish Republic, and the
anarchist militias displayed the strongest military discipline, liberals and communists alike blamed the "
sectarian" libertarian socialists for the defeat of the Republic in the
Spanish Civil War. These charges have been disputed by contemporary libertarian socialists, such as
Robin Hahnel and
Noam Chomsky, who have accused such claims of lacking substantial evidence.
Decline Following the defeat of the
Republicans in the
Spanish Civil War, libertarian socialism fell into decline.
Left-wing politics throughout the world came to be dominated either by
social democracy or
Marxism-Leninism, which attained power in a number of countries and thus had the means to support their ideological allies. In contrast, Hahnel argues, libertarian socialists were not able to gain influence within the labour movement. At a time when reformist trade unions were consistently winning concessions, the libertarian socialists' anti-reformist message gained little traction. Their platform of workers' self-management also failed to appeal to industrial workers. Until the 1960s, libertarian socialists were limited mostly to making critiques of
authoritarian socialism and
capitalism, although Hahnel asserts that these arguments were largely overshadowed by those from
neoconservatives and
Marxists respectively.
New Left , the most prominent advocate of libertarian socialism in the
New Left Libertarian socialist themes received a revival during the 1960s, when it was reconstituted as part of the nascent
New Left. This revival occurred largely unconsciously, as new leftists were often unaware of their libertarian socialist predecessors. The concepts of
grassroots democracy,
workers' control,
solidarity and
autonomy were thus reinvented by the new generation. They also picked up the principles of
decentralisation,
participatory democracy and
mutual aid. These libertarian socialist themes drove the growth of the New Left, which by this point was disillusioned by the mainstream social democratic and Marxist-Leninist political groupings, due to the capitalistic tendencies of the former and the rigid authoritarianism of the latter. Sociologist
C. Wright Mills, who displayed strong libertarian socialist tendencies in his appeals to the New Left, reformulated Marxism for the modern age in his work on
The Power Elite (1956).
Wilhelm Reich's
Freudo-Marxist theses on the
authoritarian personality were also rediscovered by the New Left, who developed his programme for individual
self-governance into a
libertarian system of education used by the
Summerhill School. Drawing on the Freudo-Marxist conception of
civilisation as "organised domination",
Herbert Marcuse developed a critique of
alienation in modern Western societies, concluding that
creativity and
political dissent had been undermined by social
repression. Meanwhile,
Lewis Mumford published denunciations of the
military-industrial complex and
Paul Goodman advocated for decentralisation. In the process, the new generation of Marxists gravitated towards libertarian tendencies, sometimes closely resembling anarchism. Following on from Marcuse,
Daniel Cohn-Bendit,
E. P. Thompson,
Raymond Williams and
Stuart Hall all adopted forms of "libertarian Marxism", opposed to the bureaucracy and parliamentarism of statist tendencies. A specific and explicit libertarian socialist tendency also began to emerge. While some more libertarian Marxists adopted the term in order to distinguish themselves from authoritarian socialists, anarchists began calling themselves "libertarian socialist" in order to avoid the negative connotations associated with anarchism. The libertarian socialist
Daniel Guérin specifically attempted to synthesise anarchism and Marxism into a single tendency, which inspired the growth of the French libertarian communist movement. For a time, even the American
anarcho-capitalist theorist
Murray Rothbard attempted to make common cause with libertarian socialists, but later shifted away from socialism and towards
right-wing populism. Many libertarian socialists of this period were particularly influenced by the analysis of
Cornelius Castoriadis and his group
Socialisme ou Barbarie. This new generation included the non-vanguardist Marxist organisation
Facing Reality, the British libertarian socialist group
Solidarity, and the Australian councilists of the Self-Management Group. Some of this new generation of libertarian socialists also joined the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), swelling the old union's numbers, organising agricultural workers and launching a new journal,
The Rebel Worker. This libertarian socialist milieu, with their criticisms of
democratic centralism and
trade unionism, and their advocacy of
workers' self-management and
council democracy, went on to inspire the French
situationists and Italian
autonomists. Of the figures in the New Left, the American linguist
Noam Chomsky became the most prominent spokesperson for libertarian socialism. Inspired by the
humanism of
Bertrand Russell, the
individualism of
Wilhelm von Humboldt and the
syndicalism of
Rudolf Rocker, Chomsky championed a libertarian socialism that upheld individual
liberty and
self-ownership. Chomsky has been an outspoken advocate of
anti-authoritarianism, opposing limits on individual freedoms by the state. He has also focused much of his libertarian socialist critique on
mass media in the United States, due to its role in the military-industrial complex. While most sections of the New Left expressed a form of libertarian socialism, others were instead being inspired by the
Cuban and
Chinese Communist Revolutions to embrace forms of
authoritarian socialism such as
Maoism–Third Worldism. As such, according to Hahnel, the New Left failed to form a coherent ideological program or establish lasting support to carry forward the momentum of the late 1960s, resulting in many dropping out of
activism altogether.
New social movements A minority from the New Left continued their radical activism within the
new social movements of the 1970s and 1980s, becoming involved in
second-wave feminism, the
gay liberation movement,
environmental movement and eventually the
anti-globalization movement. In this period, many libertarian socialists, such as
Murray Bookchin, Cornelius Castoriadis,
André Gorz,
Ivan Illich, E.P. Thompson and
Raymond Williams, were committed to " in rethinking what socialism might come to mean in an age of ecological limit". According to Robin Hahnel, new social movements continued the New Left's tendency of failing to develop a "comprehensive libertarian socialist theory and practice". Libertarian socialist activism became focused on achieving practical reforms and theoretical developments centred around common "core values" such as
economic democracy,
economic justice and
sustainable development, without building a coherent critique of capitalism. Activists from the 1970s and 1980s influenced by libertarian socialism did not advance coherent alternatives to markets and central planning, and had no reformist campaign. Eventually, Hahnel argues, they turned to traditional
single-issue campaigns and abandoned their "big picture" libertarian socialist approach. These movements were somewhat successful in achieving their goals: the movements for gay and
women's rights changed societal outlook on
gender oppression; the
anti-racist movement proved it necessary to tackle the social aspects of
racialisation; the
anti-imperialist movement reconceived of anti-imperialism outside of economic terms; and the
environmentalist movement launched a wave of ecological defense and restoration. Together, Hahnel argues, they broke from the
class reductionism prevalent in traditional forms of libertarian socialism, proving intersectional oppressions other than class also demanded attention. Through the new social movements, libertarian socialism developed an awareness of different aspects of oppression, beyond class analysis.
Contemporary era Libertarian socialism again received a revival of interest in the wake of the
fall of communism and concurrent rise of
neoliberalism. It proved particularly attractive to people from the former
Eastern Bloc, who saw it as an alternative both to western capitalism and Marxism-Leninism. Since the end of the
Cold War, there have been two major experiments in libertarian socialism: the
Zapatista uprising in
Mexico and the
Rojava Revolution in
Syria. In reaction against the implementation of the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the
privatisation of
indigenous lands by the Mexican state, in 1994, the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) rose up against the government, or inspired by libertarian socialism. They have in turn become a source of inspiration for libertarian socialists, including the
autonomist Marxists Harry Cleaver and
John Holloway, as well as some anarchists. In 2012, the
Rojava Revolution established the
Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES; or "Rojava") to put "libertarian socialist ideas ... into practice", and whose
cantons present themselves as a "libertarian socialist alternative to the colonially established state boundaries in the Middle East." Various sources have drawn parallels between the Rojava Revolution and the Zapatista uprising of 1994 or the
Spanish Revolution of 1936, and noted the influence of libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin, specifically his concept of
libertarian municipalism, on the revolution. In
Chile, there have been several libertarian socialist movements active since the 2010s in groups including
Libertarian Left and the
Broad Front (FA).
Gabriel Boric founded
Social Convergence in 2018, bringing together the
Autonomist Movement, Libertarian Left and other libertarian socialist groups. Boric, who describes himself as libertarian socialist, was
elected president in 2021. == Notable tendencies ==